Getting ready to head back to Vegas for Tech Cocktail. The folks at Veeam have stepped up to help with airfare. Now I have to plan the week of getting some startup interviews and more. Just as the CES live broadcast videos have been wrapped up.

Welcoming a new blogger on Geekazine. Adi from MHF Tech will be posting about games on Geekazine. Of course, I’ll be highlighting his articles on the show.

Last night’s TWIGG had Libby Chang from Wearables Weekly on the show. We had a great event talking about Luke Wallace’s new Glass frames. I am waiting for my v.2 Glass to return from Google.

It’s FAWM – February Album Writing Month. While I don’t usually do 14 songs anymore, I am going to try my best to do as many as possible. Some of them might just become part of my podcast – royalty free music album.

Congrats to Seattle Seahawks on the Superbowl win. There is a lot of Madison, WI in the team — not only did Russell Wilson QB in my alma matter, but another Badger Quarterback is on the team. I actually went to school with Darrell Bevel – who took us to the Rose Bowl in 1994.

Subscribe to Geekazine:

In Wisconsin, friends are called "Sconnies". Even if you're not from Wisconsin, you can be part of the Sconnie Geek Nation through my coverage! By pledging, you join the Geek Sconnie Nation! Plus, you help me cover costs so I can continue the coverage of Gadget tech, music tech, and geek culture through the shows.

Geek Smack: Credit Cards Getting Hacked – Time for a New System?

You might think that the “Great Credit Card Hack” happened last November at Target Stores nation-wide. Reality is — hacking for credit card numbers has been an issue for many years. Do you remember the big TJX card theft in 2007? 45.5 million credit cards were found to have been stolen throughout a few months time.

We are starting to hear more companies having the same problem. First, it was Neiman Marcus. Now, if you’ve used your credit card at certain White Lodging hotels (which include Hilton, Marriot, Sheriton, and Westin hotels), you might have to watch your statements for fraudulent charges.

Oh, by the way, were you charged a monthly fee of $9.84? You might be paying for a “money making online program” that you might have not even signed up for. The only one making money here, is the people charging you $9.84.

Bottom line: The almighty credit card (and subsequent debit card) you grew up with are not secure.

We put ourselves at risk everyday. According to creditcards.com, 1.5 billion own a debit/credit card. Although 176 million own credit cards, there are 1.5 billion in the US alone.

Here is the kicker – we have BETTER card technology that could have prevented Target’s breach, and more.

When I first was told my cards might be involved, I went to V.me to monitor my purchases. It’s a cool concept — every time I charge on the card, I get a text message saying the charge was made. I even found a monthly purchase I was making that I cancelled 8 months ago.

Did you know that the US credit card is actually way behind the UK’s system? They have a “chip and pin” method which has reduced fraud cases by 4x! And the interesting fact is this technology has been around since 2004!

It’s called EMV – Europay, Mastercard and Visa. It does require us to remember a pin number that we enter when we use the card. Some may say this is a pain trying to remember a pin. If your credit is four times safer, wouldn’t you want to do that?

There have also been talks through the years about fingerprint identification programs with your card. This has been widely discussed and disputed, due to the fact someone is collecting and possibly could share your fingerprint data.

Stopping fraud is best handled by users knowing who’s charging them, what they are getting charged for, and calling the companies when something is awry. With an annual $190 billion in fraudulent charges, cutting that by 4 is a great start…

1:45 PM ET PHILADELPHIA — Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz believes the decision of whether to play him in the season opener against the Atlanta Falcons is going to come down to the wire. “I think there’s been really no secret that it’s going to be close,” he said as the team wrapped up training camp […]

Fifty-Five Netflix distribution centers go offline due to an “undisclosed error”. While they didn’t let us know what happened, they did say that it only affected the core of mail-based delivery operations. The problem took 3 days to fully resolve, although they were slowly shipping movies by that Wednesday. Full Day in Tech History podcast […]